Of Oddities and Oranges
by hermithole
Summary: NEWEST: Kakasaku drabble. Bunch of Naruto drabbles that never made the cut. Random things happen and then some.
1. unsaid, kakasaku

**Pairing: **KakaSaku  
**Rating: **PG  
**Genre:** Drama... lots of it.  
**  
Summary: **Kakashi and Sakura discuss the ups and downs of Kakashi's hair... mostly ups.

**A/N:** The result of a plot bunny that wouldn't die, because no relationship is complete without discussing hair tips. I know it isn't funny, not really, but enjoy the randomness.

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**unsaid**

"I don't get it."

"Don't get what?" Kakashi gestured to the bowl of ramen. "Want some?"

"I've been observing for the past few days," Sakura leaned back against her seat and gave a frustrated sigh. "And if my deductions are correct, you don't use gel and you don't use conditioner so…"

She folded her arms and let out a huff. "How the hell do you manage to get your hair to stay like _that_?"

"A law of nature," Kakashi replied cheerfully and lifted a chopstick of noodles. "Are you sure you don't want some?"

"No." Sakura waved her hand impatiently. "The laws of nature clearly indicating that what goes up must come down. Your hair _remains where it always does._"

It was here that the Copy-Nin realized Sakura was having another female revelation. With a sad goodbye to a warm meal, he placed down his chopsticks and gave her a look of utmost patience.

"Mind telling me what this is about?"

In an instant, Sakura's cheeks reddened and her chin lifted indignantly. "Of course not."

A moment of silence passed as they stared resolutely at each other. Kakashi's stomach rumbled.

"Okay, _fine…"_ Sakura shot her ex-sensei a look of deep resentment. "Ino and I…we were talking about how our hair is always sagging onto our foreheads and if there were a way to give it more volume and we figured that _you_ might know something about it considering your hair's always standing on ends, no pun intended, and I _was_ going to ask Naruto or Sasuke but I rethought my decision, naturally, because knowing them, they'd tease or mock me for being a girl so I thought – for God's sake, _don't look at my forehead like that!_"

Kakashi's eyes snapped to Sakura's face immediately.

"I wasn't looking at your forehead." he replied. Better placate the girl than to agitate her when the conversation had barely begun. "Your hair is fine the way it is."

"Oh _pleas_e, Kakashi. Stop humoring me." Sakura rolled her eyes in exasperation, though looking remarkably pleaser than moments ago. She considered his reply. "Are you sure you aren't using some jutsu to make them stand up like that?"

"Sakura," Kakashi explained patiently. "I can think of many other places I'd like to use this non-existent jutsu on, other than my _hair._"

He pulled the ramen bowl out of the kunoichi's reach before she could flip it onto his head.

"Besides," he continued, "having hair that sticks on ends isn't necessarily good, especially when the only thing that's stopping you from genocide during missions is discovering that your hair has somehow grown an affinity with the bushes."

Sakura laughed. Kakashi gave her a wounded look.

"I'm serious."

"No, you're not."

"Okay, I'm not."

A frustrated sigh and an eye roll heavenward. "I can't believe I'm having this conversation with you."

Kakashi couldn't believe it either. His hand inched discreetly towards the ramen bowl.

Sakura slapped it away.

"I don't get why most of the guys in Konoha have pointy hair while we are stuck with flat heads and centre hairlines…"

"Because Kishimoto drew it that way?"

Sakura blinked and stared at him. "Look, Kakashi. If you don't tell me, I'm going to put a kunai between your eyes and drag out your brain through your nostrils –"

Kakashi _refused _to move his fingers.

"—like the damn ramen you're trying to eat."

He paused, tapped his chin and pondered her reply, "I think I'm ready to answer your question now, Sakura-chan."

She beamed at him as he pulled down his mask and told her.

There was silence. After a while:

"_Really_?" Sakura's eyes were wide. "This – this Hair Growth Technique No. 5 you're talking about – does it work on girls?"

"Afraid not." Kakashi shrugged. The ramen was delicious. Jiraiya probably never went hungry when he made him promise.

There was a moment of silence. Birds chirped happily outside the window. It was a beautiful day.

Then: "Who the hell is Kishimoto?"

Two blocks away, someone sneezed.

More birds chirped. Clouds floated by. Then:

"The 10th Hokage."

Some things were better left unsaid.

* * *

**More Author's Note:** Bahahahaha. Because Kakashi knows everything.


	2. motion, genfic

**Summary: **There is a motion, and there is a random motion, and there is a motion that inspires in us a different motion.

**Pairing: **Not every fic needs a pairing. Not every pairing needs a translation.

* * *

**'motion'**

There is a sweet way in which her lips grace mine, almost like stirring the waters of a very calm lake on a day when the sakura blossoms are in full bloom, watching the ripples swell out in tiny circles, and here on days when my mood take a poetic swing, almost – almost like a huge, spinning windmill.

There is a motion, I think, and it goes like this:

Up.  
Down.  
Up.  
Down.  
Up.  
Down.  
Down.  
_Up._

There is a motion, and there is a random motion, and there is a motion that inspires in us a different motion. There is a motion that gestures a fluctuating rhythm, for what rhythm are we – and this motion – if the passage of time bridges not the space between the minute hand, and the second hand, and the hour hand, but a different pulse, a different beat, a different rhythm?

Dear You, I say.

You have a way with words.

And it is almost like this, this, our motion, our time, our rhythm, that there is a story, and this story, this story, our story, sometimes my story, _well_, this story, it flickers a whole new rhythm.

* * *

**A/N: **I don't know what this is, and seriously have no idea where my muse came from. Just a hint though: it's 1am, and I woke up not too long ago from a very long nap, and my homework is in a mess and well, inspiration strikes me happily in a way that it really shouldn't, not at 1am when I woke up not too long ago from a nap, not when my homework is in a mess, la la la, all that jazz. There are some pairings I do have in mind, and there are some things that probably won't fit the picture, but what this drabble means is: I don't care, interpret it however you will. It doesn't have to involve anyone, or it could even be Orochimaru speaking in riddles. Don't look at me like that. We know Orochimaru likes dancing in boxers. HE TOLD ME HE LIKED FLORAL. Make of that however you will.

I guess this could very well account for original fic, but since I wrote it with Naruto fandom in mind, I'm posting it up. Dudes! Let me know your interpretations.

I hope to post up a new drabble every day or so. It's free therapy. Any requests? (I'm not necessarily taking them, but I'm liable to the suggestions...)


	3. solstice, xmas drabble

**Title:** Solstice  
**Author:** hermithole  
**Summary:** Christmas always brings out the nice things in people.

**A/N: **Merry Christmas everyone! My short break in writing has reduced it to what it was previously: subpar & crappy. So let's take this drabble as a gearing-up-for-more of sorts, and that there will, really, be more to come. Here's hoping that your Xmas holidays are turning out a lot better than mine (hello, more assignments) and that where you are living is snowing a whole lot more than where I am. I haven't seen snow in 14 years, for which I sob pathetically. Also, I very much hope to celebrate a _real_ Christmas perhaps some time in future, for Christmas is my absolute favourite time of the year! Enough of my rambling... onward to an extremely short drabble!

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'**Solstice'**

Christmas always brings out the nice things in people. This is what Sakura thinks as she treks her way back to Konoha. The mission has been easy, almost too easy, and perhaps on any other day Sakura might have raised doubts about whether the Hokage was losing confidence in her abilities, but this is Christmas. This is Christmas that brings out the best in people, even for her shishou drunk on a bottle of sake, or her teammate gorging himself over a bowl of ramen. This is what Sakura thinks as she reaches Konoha, and gazes at the landscape with appraising eyes. There is something about Christmas that lifts corners and overturns frowns, something about the way it goes that every street and house sparkle with the very life of it, like a grand image frozen over a glaze of ice, frozen and surreal and still.

This is Christmas donning every inch of Konoha: from its bright, flickering lights to the variant baubles hanging in rows off every telephone line, for the way voices crackle like glowing fire over Christmas stockings and candy canes, and the white, white snow that crunches under Sakura's feet and lingers on the thatched roof planes.

Happiness on Christmas day comes gift wrapped and packaged. This is what Sakura notices as Naruto, bubbling and boisterous, skids to a stop next to her.

"Sakura-chan!" his breath drifts out in icy mists, cheeks flushed from the cold. "You're back from the mission!" Almost as an apology for a poor greeting, he shoves a box into her hands, eager, hankering, perhaps a little too overzealous. "Merry Christmas!" he gives an embarrassed laugh and scratches the back of his head. "Hi'a'ta-chan spent all night wrapping them because I wasn't too good at it, but you'll— you'll like it!" There isn't time to reply, because Naruto is already off. "Now to give Sasuke-teme his gift!" he yells back to her, and pulls Hinata along as he bounds off in the opposite direction. "M-Merry Christmas, S-Sakura-san!" Hinata calls out. "Hope you like your g-gift!"

Alone, Sakura fingers the present. It is lukewarm in her hand, corners folded and fingered with meticulous precision under a tape smooth and flat.

No, she thinks to herself. In the distance someone is calling out her name and someone is waving at her and someone is smiling at her under the great winter sky.

Christmas in Konoha isn't a frozen glaze of ice.

It is a warm cup of sake, flushed and snug and glowing.

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	4. untitled, shika gen

**Author: **hermithole  
**Summary: **In the aftermath of Asuma's death, Shikamaru smokes cigarettes and gazes at clouds.

**-**

"You are a _fool_, Shikamaru," Ino is hovering over him, blocking out the sunlight. He can see her contours outlined, a comedic street performer, all shadows and dents.

"Funny this is coming from you," he replies, without mirth, "Ino."

"Do you think—sitting here, smoking yourself to _death_ is going to make Asuma-sensei come back to life?" Ino snaps. "You'll sit here, and you'll—you'll willingly chain-smoke yourself to the asshole you are, while Asuma-sensei lies beneath _ten _foot of soil _dead_!"

"Well, what do you want me to do then?" Shikamaru blows a puff of smoke into the air, watches the white dust fade into the sky, pictures them disintegrating into tiny atoms. The sky is blue, the clouds too bright, and he has to shield his eyes from the burning sun. It doesn't look like it is going to rain anytime soon. How ironic, he thinks, and shifts his body away from Ino. Look right, into the bushy clumps of leaves growing by in the distance. To affirm the possibility that if one could look closely enough, one would see the hidden answers between the leaves, the stranded foresights in the shoots. How ironic, he thinks, and how pathetic.

"If only Asuma-sensei could see you now," and Ino isn't laughing. "Wasting your life away, thinking that the goddamn world revolves around you. Asuma-sensei would be _ashamed _of you. He would plummet you to your death, and if he won't do it _I _will. He died, Shika, Asuma-sensei died and here you are wallowing in your self-induced pity, lazing around your bum with a cigarette between your lips _cloud-gazing_—" It is funny, this situation, and so—so troublesome. Not getting up, not walking, lazing here on grassy patches smoking a cigarette or two like he owns the damn world is, and it is, even to his own considerations now, a general decrepit of the worst sort. Ino should be laughing, because it is bizarre. That is the way of the world. He should say something like, "You needn't bother, really," and tell her to go away. To close herself up once in a while (now would be semi-appropriate, he thinks.) To contemplate the situation. To leave him alone.

The density of the air is making him sleepy. An incessant weight presses into his legs. The hairs on his back feel like they are stripped dry and rubbed raw. The cigarette stains his lungs, but only a little. He finds it in himself to cough, to dispel the negativity, but this – smoking cigarettes on a patch seared by the heart of the sun with grass planes rubbing his thighs non-too-gently – withdraws any thoughts of a second breath. Instead, he closes his eyes and waits. Waits for the world to loosen. Waits for Ino's voice to grow a little more distant.

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**A/N: **This was a drabble I did for a speed-writing practice about a month ago. Have not yet managed to develop it into a one-shot. If anyone's interested in my LJ updates, add hermitholed. to your flist. Also - I'm happy to say that I'll be able to update a little more frequently in the next couple of weeks, what with school over and all. Look forward to them. Thanks for reading! hh


	5. secret, kakasaku

**Pairing: **KakaSaku**  
Author: **hermithole

**A/N:** I wrote this sometime last year, but was never inclined to post it until now. This was supposed to be a one-shot written as a page from Sakura's diary, musing over her relationship with Kakashi. Somehow, I didn't find it appropriate and eventually trashed the idea. Much of the original version has been kept, so you can see the cheesiness (possibly) in its entire glory.

Also, while reading this you _have_ to listen to the soundtrack of Byousoku 5cm or the piano opening of Ayashi no Ceres. Then y'all be emo like me. :D

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**Secret**

I do not know what was the precise moment that things changed between us. Was it on Training Ground 2, with the sky caved around us like a palm and the ground spinning under my feet, that words had taken life? Perhaps it was when we traded blows, parry for parry and fist against fist, that the solid form of reality had parried the strands of doubt and the world – _my_ world at least – spun off its axis.

Sometimes I'd like to believe that things changed even before they began to, but you can't ever know with these things, can you?

Fact of the matter was, I don't think there had ever been a precise moment. It wasn't like the way movies went, a preset script, an arranged cast. Or the way stories went, at the precise strike of midnight when things fall to dust. I have pored over books for as long as I can remember. It became the only thing that defined who I was. Books kept me sane, I think, but for one to be sane you have got to come close to being insane. Insanity is defined by how much you are willing to press against the boundaries of time and overstep the limit just a little bit, how much you live, how much you are willing to live.

Truth is, I don't think I'd ever been insane. I don't think I'd ever been sane. I don't think I'd been anything at all. This state of nothingness isn't an empty feeling that leaves a gaping hole in your heart. Nothing has no shape or volume; given to neither time nor space. Nothing did not gnaw at your insides as Something did. He – Sasuke had probably been that something, but he could have been anything at all. Falling into nothingness, I think now, is not like falling into a rock, and then realizing that the rock has a solid shape and size. Nothingness is like dark matter. You don't notice that you are standing in it until comparisons are drawn and you realize that the ground beside you is still one step away from you. Have I missed something along the way? I think to myself. Sakura, you tell me. Just be who you want to be.

There was no buildup to this, no before or after. It was the simple state of being, of unity; intertwined. It converged upon us like a blanket; a turn of your cheek, a twist of mine. What about routine? I asked myself now and then when things get rough. What about order? What about rules?

You wouldn't call it love; you aren't romantic like that. Sometimes I say, "I love him like no other." But it, like life, isn't a fair statement. There have been no others. There have been waiting, but there have been no queue. This is neither an arrangement nor a schedule; words cannot define what or who we are.

If Naruto could see me now, he would say, "Sakura-chan, why are you speaking in riddles?"

If Sasuke were here, he would not have cared.

If you were here, you would have said, "Sakura, don't think so much." But I know you don't believe that. You may seem lackadaisical and uncaring, cold and aloof, but somewhere deep beneath the recesses of the walls you have built around yourself, I know you do. You care as much as you have flesh and blood. There are times when you lie to us, but we know you have been there. His grave. Obito's. I know who Obito is, yes. I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry. I'm sorry I couldn't have helped, I'm sorry that it isn't enough that I'm sorry. I'm sorry there was nothing I could do.

* * *

We have a secret, you and I. There is no lock. There is no key. There is no secret between us, but we, as a whole, we have a secret. From the people we love, from the village that we have sworn to protect, from the world that has come to define who we are.

Is it enough?

Aren't we enough? Isn't this enough?


End file.
